ADB Says South Korea’s GDP Could Contract by up to 1% Point

The Asian Development Bank said on March 8 that South Korea’s GDP would decrease by more than US$16.53 billion or approximately 1 percent and the number of employed South Koreans would decrease by 357,000 or 1.19 percent in the worst-case scenario of COVID-19, which assumes that a ban on travel to China and a decline in domestic consumption continue for six months and COVID-19 continues to spread for three months.

According to the bank, the output growth of the transportation industry of South Korea falls 2.41 percentage points and its output falls US$1.32 billion in that scenario. The figures are estimated at 2.13 percentage points and US$2,661.2 million in the case of hotels, restaurants and other individual customer services, 1 percentage point and US$7,787.41 million in the case of enterprise, trade and public services, and 0.67 percentage point and US$4,184.81 million in the case of heavy industries, public projects and construction.

In the meantime, Bloomberg Intelligence said on March 8 that the global total GDP will decrease by US$2,681 billion and the global economic growth rate will stand at 0.1 percent this year if COVID-19 turns into a pandemic.

The figures are US$187 billion and 2.9 percent in its best-case scenario assuming that damage from the virus is concentrated on China and the global economy recovers in the second quarter of this year.